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Irish Sunday Newspaper Circulation 2009

Looking at the biggest market, the Sunday, it managed to fair a little better that the mornings or evenings.

The market is down 47,000 year on year or 4% and to put that in cash terms, €2.5m at the till.

It could be reasonably argued that a 4% decline in the year that was is not too shabby.

On a positive point the Sunday Mirror gained 500 copies year on year and the Sunday Times had a fantastic run adding 4,000 copies. Given their recent woes with Dunnes it a good result.

The biggest faller in percentage terms is the Mail on Sunday and ironically possibly one of the more active papers in marketing terms.

The biggest faller in copy terms is the Sunday World loosing nearly 15,000 copies. In their defence they are still the largest selling paper in the jurisdiction and, if were where to open a Pandora’s Box, they are by far the most ‘actively purchased’ paper. There may only be 2,300 between them and the Sunday Independent but if you look beyond the topline figure the actively purchased (stripping our bulks) distance is nearly 22,000 in the World’s favour.

The buying patterns of the Sunday Market is changing irrevocably. Whereas the Daily is (in the main) a one paper purchase, the Sunday market has always been, to a greater extent a multiple purchase. The days of buying two or three papers could well be back to one single paper.

The papers in the market have tried everything and have spent substantial marketing budgets on books, CD’s, posters, free meals and magazines, one off or sporadic ones.

This may have actually prevented a greater haemorrhage than you see here below.

The tabloids still make up 45% of the market compared to 40% for the morning market.

Without pointing fingers: The Sunday Business Post had its biggest year on year (6 months to a comparable 6 months) drop since 2002 – a point when we were last in ‘recession’. So does history repeat itself?

Publication

July Dec 2008

July Dec 2009

Diff ‘000

Diff %

Sunday Independent

270,362

268,140

-2,222

-1%

Sunday World

285,214

270,453

-14,761

-5%

Sunday Tribune

66,672

65,727

-945

-1%

Sunday Business Post

54,993

52,271

-2,722

-5%

IoS/Daily Mail

125,420

112,710

-12,710

-10%

Daily Star Sunday

59,898

57,679

-2,219

-4%

Irish News of the World

139,321

132,425

-6,896

-5%

Irish Sunday Mirror

38,976

39,652

676

2%

The People

26,847

21,979

-4,868

-18%

Sunday Times

109,999

114,074

4,075

4%

Sunday Express

5,115

4,600

-515

-10%

Independent.on Sunday

2,870

1,736

-1,135

-40%

The Observer

11,574

9,340

-2,234

-19%

Sunday Telegraph

3,095

2,595

-500

-16%

Total

1,200,356

1,153,381

-46,976

-4%

A picture paints …..

This is each half year since 2000. Like for like sales (that’s excluding Sunday Daily Star and Mail on Sunday figures) the Sunday Market is back a massive 176,000 copies.